Sunday, January 02, 2011

seven

To the day: seven years of daily blogging, and since I got my first digital camera – of daily photos, too. (Unless I’ve had a handful of bad ones and refuse to use any. Usually I can eek out something. Most anyone can.)

How long will this continue?

It has become, like a morning cup of coffee or an evening glass of wine, like saying I love you to a daughter when I hang up the phone (does one still “hang up” an iphone?) – basically a habit.

I like to think of Ocean as a story. Illustrated. Variously told – better on some days, tediously dull on others.

Everyone, of course, has a story to tell and I keep searching the web for others who do this on a regular basis and there are so few now! Facebook, Twitter – they’ve made things easier for the occasional poster, but it’s not the same. Too fragmented, cursory, buried in pages upon pages of others. The continuity is missing. It’s like reading many books at once and getting the story lines confused.


It’s cold again today. I work until late afternoon and then I deliberate. To go out? Too cold. To stay indoors? Too wimpy.

Ed and I talk ourselves into going out on Picnic Point and though it is beastly freezing, it is also quite beautiful. A sheet of glass.


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The lake now is deeply frozen and even though I haven’t the stamina (nor the warm clothes today) to step out far, others do.


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As they come closer to shore, I hear them speak. Russian. Well okay. It’s probably colder where they come from.


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So cold. My hands grow numb. Ed is limping along, trying to convince me that in a few days, we can hike. Or at least toddle from one place to the next.


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Slippery patches. Life is like that. Toddling along.

Year after year.

New Year

That was a vicious beginning to a new year. The wind slashed through my sweat pants and I felt my legs grow numb. Unrelenting cold.

Of course, I could have just stayed home. But I worked from the first hours of daylight and I wanted a break.

It’s rare that you see Lake Mendota so completely iced over and without a speck of snow.


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Where is the snow anyway?

Melted. Blame two days of fog and the other day's warm gust of air that passed through.


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If the New Year is to set the tone for the days ahead, then mine, unfortunately, will be a year of reclusive work. And suppers thrown together – today, of beans, eggs, potatoes, tomatoes, walnuts and anchovies.With a mustard vinaigrette.


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It’s worth it though. If only for those periods of nonwork that follow. Eventually.

Happy New Year. May it be well balanced for us all. (Wouldn't that be grand...)